Hmmm. My only injuries from bikes have come from road riding up to and including hospitalisation on a couple of occasions. I have had off’s on track but nothing worse than a few bumps and bruises, touch wood. Since returning to track riding (only track days) I have slowed up my riding on the road considerably. Which is a good thing. I will continue to do both for as long as my body and wallet will allow. Can’t get enough of bikes TBH. Oh. And been past Loomies a few times but never stopped. To many leather chaps in evidence for my liking.
I like road riding, like the escape of it, concentrates the mind on something other than the daily grind for a few hours. Obv 20yrs ago we treated it like a free track day but as I get older and wiser(?) I’m just not interested in that anymore, I find it just too stressful trying to ride at speed on the road. I was contemplating knocking biking on the head after the MS but missing it already so thinking of getting a Scrambler, 85hp is where the fun is, not 185hp Been to Loomies a few times, it’s alright but prefer to head North/westward (south is not an option from here )
you know, aren't they all fun but just different kinds of fun? I miss a 33 bhp Cagiva two stroke*, it was the kind of fun I could never find on any of the "bigger" bikes. It's a satisfying feeling to know you've "wrung the neck" of a smaller powered bike compared to always feeling that perhaps you never quite did with a larger bike - speaking for myself obviously. * I can remember passing a couple of grinning people watching me like I was Barry Sheene or something, it was the 7 speed version and I was really "on it" and they must have heard me coming as no traffic at the time. I wondered what they were looking at but on reflection I realised it was what they were hearing..
An old Triumph 500 is excellent. 30-something bhp, zippy, motorway speeds no problem, brilliant for country lanes; and if a Trophy (TR5), brilliant off-road. Must come down that way sometime. I think that road might be one I rode in a sub-hurricane, came into an open stretch and had to ride, straight, cranked over about 45deg, and while doing so noticed a Luton at the side of the road on it's side. Used to ride around those parts a lot, but it's been a long, long time.
They’re all day fun, depending on the roads you’re riding. Every time my mate and I ride our Monkeys, we’re laughing all day long, but mainly stick to the back roads. It’s very rare that we’ll do less than a hundred miles in a day on them.
Surely the whether you ride on the road, or not, or whether an R1 is too much for the road is totally irrelevant to this thread? I only ask because the specific point being made is more about people's appetite to push things to the absolute limit until someone imposes a limit on them and then they are up in arms? Loomies has been bad for years, I ride on the road all the time and enjoy it, years ago I made a decision to avoid bike meets because they just bring out the worst. Last time I was there, some tw*t on a GSXR was doing a rolling burnout with about 20 people in cars queuing at the traffic lights, so no doubt that's 20 'car drivers' who went away thinking we are all tw*ts. I worked in a bike shop years ago also, unfortunately there are a worrying amount of people who seem to see a thrill in using their bikes and the noise of the bike as some sort of tool to try and intimidate people and it's coming back to bite us. Sorry, very negative but I don't think I'm alone on the bike meet thing, I went to the local Wanborough one in the summer as I wanted to support a local pub trying to get some business, and there were tw*ts wheelying out of the village and it just confirmed my experience, and now, funnily enough after only 1 summer, the residents have shut it down. I think what would be good, is more bike meets at big exhibition spaces, more 'events' for bikers that are in places designed for it rather than in villages etc.
I have a little 50bhp supermoto'd adventure bike and it's brill, I can wring it's neck everywhere and yet somehow never get much past 80mph. It has the poke to overtake and the twistier it get's the better it keeps up with big bikes. To it a B road is what an nice A road is to a sportsbike. Personally I go Loomies for a bit of window shopping while having a coffee. It's easier looking round the parking lot on a sunny day than touring the local dealers.
I get the not needing a million horsepower thing. I recently did a karting do with some mates and it was a rare old hoot. Flat as farts but great fun all the same. Nowt wrong with 200hp on the back wheel either. Ridiculous for the road but feck it. The volume of traffic used to piss me off. And if you ever did manage to crack on, you had to be extremely wary of plod/technology poised to snatch your license in a heartbeat. Plus, road riding is fucking dangerous. There’s no sugarcoating it. Bought a KTM SDR last spring for road hoonage and I just wasn’t feeling it. So I’m selling it. Shame really, cracking bike. But too much dough sitting there pretty in my garage doing nowt…
Yep, I've finally taken the plunge and swapped my bike for an R1 for trackdays and which I'll only ride on the road until I can afford to get a Thruxton R, which is the best road bike I've had in years, you can still do silly stuff on it but it doesn't immediately drive you to it.
Surprised they havent done similar at the H Cafe, some very daft riding round that neck of the woods of a weekend (and never by me mr officer if youre reading this, no siree).
I agree with all your points. For me the small capacities allow you to feel like you are getting a crack on, as you are working to maintain speed but you can't easily reach license losing territory. I know on the Multi I conciously stop accelerating at a certain point just in case. As a majority road rider ~10k a year, I don't see it as "fucking dangerous" but then I've spent time on advanced riding courses to improve my observation skills as well as track and off-road to improve bike control. True I mostly ride around at 80% of my capacity, but I still find things to challenge myself on to keep it interesting. All that traffic = overtaking challenge time. The roads I enjoy best now are the continuously twisty ones where it's a challenge to maintain a decent speed and you have to work for it on any bike. That said for the best road riding I travel, Wales, Scotland and across the EU where the roads are less monitored.
